


An Unexpected Getaway

by TwilightLegacy13



Series: Things Unforeseen [1]
Category: The Witchlands Series - Susan Dennard
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Original Character(s), taking place four years before An Unexpected Introduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightLegacy13/pseuds/TwilightLegacy13
Summary: Taking place four years prior to An Unexpected Introduction, a heretical Wordwitch named Arida gets into some trouble in the Angelstatt and meets the imperial prince of Cartorra.
Series: Things Unforeseen [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068053
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	An Unexpected Getaway

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a quick one-shot for how Leopold and Arida met each other. It's technically a prequel to An Unexpected Introduction, but you don't really need to read that to understand this.
> 
> Content warnings: Language, mild injury.

Arida had a talent for getting into trouble, but this time she thought she might have outdone herself. In her defense, it had been a long day and her vast pride wouldn’t let her be turned away from the leatherworker’s shop without making a scene. It just so turned out that making a scene outside a store that was robbed minutes later did _not_ help a person’s credibility when they said they hadn’t done it, especially when that person was Nomatsi.

So she now found herself on the run from the Pragan city guards, seven blocks away from home with a knee that, though not broken, was exceedingly painful from the way she’d twisted it while trying to run as the shopkeeper grabbed her to keep her in place. Then, the moment she rounded the corner, she saw the unmistakable uniforms of Hell-Bards at the other end of the street. Quite plainly, she was fucked.

The city guards were bad enough, but she _couldn’t_ be caught by Hell-Bards.

Stumbling into a run and trying to ignore the throbbing in her right leg, Arida turned down a random side street—really, what she needed was a place to hide. She didn’t have any weapons and even if she did, she wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to use them. She had her voice, of course, but hiding that was the only thing that kept her from a fate worse than death or imprisonment.

But of course, because Arida never thought things through as well as she should, the street was a dead end and her heart pounded in time with the footsteps of the guards behind her.

She was alone except for a man reading a letter at the end of the alley, but she wouldn’t be for long if they’d seen her turn here. There was no way out, especially if there were Hell-Bards nearby who could sense her witchery, so she swallowed her pride and forced herself to keep running until she’d reached the man.

Arida grabbed at his sleeve, gasping for breath. Tears sprang to her eyes as her sudden stop on the cobblestones jarred the knee she’d twisted. “Please,” she begged. “Hide me.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, alarmed. His eyes were the color of the sea and they seemed kind, but she knew better than to blindly believe that when her scarf and cloak were still disguising her features. His concern might vanish the moment he really saw her.

Then again, Arida had gotten into this mess by being reckless, so being reckless again might be the only way to get out of it. Besides, one man was a lot easier to deal with than a group of Hell-Bards.

“ _Please_ ,” she repeated desperately.

Without another word, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the back door of an old condemned building. Surprisingly, he followed her inside before closing the latch.

It was wonderfully quiet inside, with no rapid footfalls of guards chasing her or bustling crowds in the Angelstatt. Arida leaned against the wall, her hand against her chest as she waited for her heart to resume its normal rhythm.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The man spun around from where he was standing by the door, his eyebrows raised. His strawberry-blond curls fell slightly into his face as he tilted his head, surveying her. Each of his movements seemed carefully weighed and calculated. “Now that we’re in a building that looks like it might collapse on us at any moment”—he gestured expansively at their surroundings, which did look rather worn-down and unsteady— “what was so urgent?”

“Well, it _is_ condemned.” She slid down to the floor, her left leg pulled up to her chest and her right extended in front of her. “And…I ran into a bit of trouble.”

“Ah.” The man gracefully lowered himself to the floor across from her, his hands folded over his lap. “The kind of trouble that requires help, or the kind that makes me regret locking myself in a building with you?”

With just a single word, Arida could be exactly the second kind of trouble, but she didn’t think she needed to be. At least not yet. Still: “I’d be foolish to say anything but the first kind, wouldn’t I?”

He laughed. “I think I’d be able to find out the truth no matter what you said. I’m quite clever.”

“And it seems that I’m not clever enough,” Arida said before slipping off her hood and unwinding her scarf to reveal her face. Her very Nomatsi face, all except for the blue eyes she’d inherited from her Cartorran mother. Her lips remained parted as she saw the man look at her, ready and waiting to trap him with her words.

Instead he smiled, a charming smile that made her feel much safer than a simple grin should have. “You’re avoiding the question. What trouble are you in?”

With a sigh, she decided to tell him the truth. After everything she’d done today, what was another risk? “I was at the leatherworker’s shop,” she began, “and no one wanted me there. They tried to get me to leave, but I didn’t want to.”

“Allow me to assume,” the man interrupted with a chuckle. “You didn’t go quietly?”

“I raised hell, actually,” Arida said honestly. She knew it was smartest and safest to keep her head down and stay out of danger, but it was so frustrating when the same people who sneered at her smiled at her aunt Treise, or at Treise’s best friend and the friend’s daughter. She just wished people hated her for her how arrogant and careless she was instead of for her face. “It might have been all right if someone else didn’t rob the shop almost immediately after. Now the city guards think I did it.”

He blinked. “Did you?”

“I did _not_ ,” she insisted, and truly she hadn’t. Even she wasn’t foolish enough to steal from an establishment that had been hurling death threats at her only moments before.

“Well, that does sound like trouble.” He leaned forward. “What’s your name?”

Now Arida was the one to laugh. “I said I wasn’t clever enough. I didn’t say I was stupid.”

“I’m sure you aren’t,” he acquiesced. “But you live in the Angelstatt, so your family likely doesn’t come from money—though you aren’t completely destitute, as you were in the leatherworker’s shop in the first place and didn’t want to leave it. You’re Nomatsi, but with Cartorran eyes, and your Pragan accent is so flawless that you must have lived here for most of your life. I did tell you I was clever, and the things you haven’t told me are far more useful to know than your name. Indulge my good-natured curiosity?”

“Why should I?” she asked, her mouth dry. He already knew more than enough, as all of what he’d said was true—though admittedly, her accent would have been perfect even if she’d lived in a Nomatsi settlement until yesterday. Her Wordwitchery was useful like that.

The man nodded as though making an admission. “True enough. It’s only fair that I introduce myself first.” He bowed as best he could from his position on the floor, adding an unnecessary flourish of his hand. “My name is Prince Leopold fon Cartorra.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “The Fourth.”

Arida couldn’t help it—she laughed. There was something so irresistibly funny about the way he tacked on “the Fourth” as though it would change the fact that she’d just admitted to the _thrice-damned prince_ that she was on the run from the law. And then she thought about the way she’d begged for his help and the way he’d actually agreed, and she just kept laughing.

Leopold looked mildly offended. “If you keep that up, you’ll wound my ego.”

And now she’d insulted the imperial heir of Cartorra by laughing at him. Well, if all the stupid things she did today were going to kill her, she might as well go down dramatically.

“Your Highness,” Arida managed between bursts of laughter, “you wounded your own the moment you started talking to me.” Then something occurred to her. “Why the hell-flames were you alone in an alley in the Angelstatt?”

“I get tired of guards sometimes,” he explained, “and I had something I needed to read away from prying eyes. Contrary to what many seem to think, I can actually take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can, Your Highness. Now I need to leave.” She’d gladly face the guards again if it meant not explaining to the prince that she was also hiding from Hell-Bards who would be able to notice she was a heretic. Even Leopold wouldn’t be amiable towards her after that.

She pushed to her feet and nearly crumpled again at the pain shooting up to her hip from her right knee. Maybe she’d injured herself a bit worse than she’d thought.

“Are you all right?” he asked, rising as well.

“Fine,” she gritted out. “My aunt is a healer.”

Leopold still drew closer as if to help support her, and she reacted instinctively. “Back away,” Arida warned, her voice thick with Wordwitched charm, the only weapon she ever had a hope of using.

He immediately complied, his sea-green eyes slightly glazed over. He blinked at her, mouth falling open in shock that even his careful mask couldn’t hide. “Oh, you _are_ clever for hiding it.” His lips twisted into a smile laced with something that looked almost like respect. “I’ll take you back to your aunt so she can heal you, but meet me here tomorrow at sundown.”

“I can’t,” she said hurriedly. “Go back, that is. The—”

“I’ll go with you the long way, where I know none of the Hell-Bards will be,” Leopold amended. “And I’ll put a glamour around us so the guards can’t find you either.”

“A glamour?” She had definitely missed something.

Leopold’s smile widened. “You’re lucky to have run into the treasonous, traitorous prince who happens to be a heretic like yourself. I happen to have a great many things I want to get done, and I think you’d make a perfect spy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed it!


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